Aircraft fairing panels enhance the aerodynamic profile of an aircraft, while at the same time shielding underlying components of the aircraft (e.g., brackets, stringers, hoopwise frames, etc.) from direct exposure to the elements. For example, fairing panels may cover a side-of-body intersection that unites a wing of an aircraft to a body of the aircraft.
Since the intersections between structural aircraft components (e.g., the wings, the fuselage, the tail) each vary on an aircraft-by-aircraft basis, it remains infeasible to precisely and accurately predict (e.g., to the tenth of a centimeter) the location at which mounting points at the intersection will be placed for a fairing panel. Thus, technicians are forced to insert hole locators into each mounting point at an intersection, tape the hole locators in place to prevent the hole locators from falling out, place the fairing into the desired installation region, and hammer each hole locator into the fairing to mark a specific location for drilling through the fairing. If the fairing moves or shifts during this process, some holes drilled through the fairing will be placed at the wrong location and will not properly align with the underlying mounting points. Thus, the process of mounting a fairing is manually intensive and time consuming.
For at least these reasons, aircraft manufacturers continue to desire enhanced techniques for reducing the amount of time and human effort involved in installing a fairing.